TS Harvey.. Reborn Again .. Tropical Storm Again. PTC10 Off the SE Coast Forecast to Move Towards Carolinas.

At 11 PM. 

Tropical Storm Harvey Reborn.

PTC10

That's not good.

Louisiana has a problem tonight.

It's name is TS Harvey.

Note it edges East towards New Orleans.

PTC10

Been a long day. 

Busy day in the tropics.

Harvey has been upgraded AGAIN back to Tropical Storm status and a new cone has been put out with watches and warnings. Again this is a Tropical Storm, not a Category 4 Hurricane, and the emphasis is on immense flooding and continued tornado warnings. Note the concern below that they may have to issue the Tropical Storm Watch East towards Louisiana. Sigh. Sigh really doesn't cut it, not sure what does and I try not to curse here on the blog. "Oh snap" doesn't cut it either. The dreaded movement back towards water has occurred so at least we know the models have been on top of Harvey. They called the historic flooding, most discounted it could happen and they were right originally in the loop back to water.

And I want to say...

I found this shirt the other day.

I could listen to Norcross talk all night.

Oh snap... I did. 

A calm voice of reason.

Smart. Very smart.

No one like him..

Listening to Bryan today...

...brought back so many memories of 1992.

Know that tonight under the cover of darkness people are trapped in homes in Houston with flood waters near their homes or actually in their homes. By the way flood waters have disease and well..snakes in them often as well as fish that have been misplaced.  Old people who live alone, families with babies and pets and just people... human beings with lives that are being slowly destroyed and lives that will have to be rebuilt. In a tropical, warm environment one of the worst things you can have is flooding in your home. Mold grows on contact, everything needs to be removed, rebuilt and it takes forever. Key West after Wilma was a mess and the rebuilding went on honestly forever. People who don't have disposable incomes or good credit get hit the worst. Many in Key West (no everyone is not rich there) had to move out of their homes and live in small apartments while hoping repairmen got the work done and the Insurance money slowly came in. It's a slow motion solution for a slow motion disaster in all ways. Flooding sucks.

Unless you have lived through a hurricane and had to make tough choices you cannot second guess "why" they didn't evacuate. After Hurricane Rita and the mass, messy evacuation that went awry while Rita went away Houstonians are not prone to packing up and taking to the Interstate. 

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Hurricane-Rita-anxiety-leads-to-hellish-fatal-6521994.php

I've said this a million times online and this is not an exaggeration. They never seem to learn. In 1999 the NHC tracked Hurricane Irene up out of the Caribbean and made a cone showing it going to the West Coast of Florida. Cantore was on the beach in Naples or Ft Myers (wherever) and the weather was nice waiting for landfall. On satellite imagery we could see ALL THE WEATHER moving EN MASSE towards Miami yet they would not put up any warnings because the "center" was moving to West Florida. Of all the storms I have gone through Irene was crazy. Water came in at the base of our house and the terrazzo floor was getting wet, yet the water was not from outside on the grass yet coming through the concrete walls. Never saw anything like it. And then the streets did flood and my 17 year old son walked blocks from the bus when he was finally sent home from work after the MAYOR went on air BEGGING employers to let their workers go home. He was about 6 feet tall and the water in the street was above his knees... and the whole time the NHC insisted the actual circulation of Irene was making landfall in Naples which seemed sort of devoid of weather as most of it was in Miami. You had to be there to understand.

Happens often. The NHC tracked the eye and it warned constantly of a flooding threat, however there was no specific warning to Houston to evacuate and as always that's sort of passed off to local government officials, the NWS and local weather authorities.

I have said this for years. A hurricane has to be viewed as one large weather maker. It has many aspects and many dangers and you can't just track the "center of the eye" as they do. Sometimes the NHC needs to make that call and suggest and advise if you live in an area in Houston prone to flooding while the eye will not pass over you, the flooding is forecast to be historic and plan accordingly. The devil is in the detals; details are needed and information has to be put out in a simple way with less emphasis on whether the models will verify. Junk the jargon is I believe the popular term. And though the discussion was originally to be used by other meteorologists everyone can go online and read the long dissertation on why they hope their forecast will verify. It's public domain, everyone reads it or hears it quoted. Keep It Simple ...

A hurricane includes the many weather features below.

Eye.

Eye Wall.

Bands with vicious winds.

Tornado formation in the bands.

Wind.

Storm Surge.

Torrential Rain.

Loss of Power.

Flooding.

Look at the sheer size of the total system.

There is weather everywhere.

Far from the eye.

Over a large area far from the exact center of the eye these aspects of a hurricane are felt and often far from the center. A death in South Carolina was attributed to Hurricane Andrew in a distant band.  No you can't forecast for weather far from the center in specific detail, but the threat for flooding in Houston WAS there and WAS predicted. Note the various images below the intense right side of Harvey over time.

Note the constant huge right sided structure.

That's the part that hit Houston.

Harvey had for most of it's time an odd structure with a wide right side and narrow left side. It several times developed a weather mass to the East of the storm that looked as big and dangerous as the storm. And when Harvey moved inland at 2 or 3 MPH forward speed that large back side of Harvey slide North with the eye far to the South. This is not the first time this has happened, but it keeps happening. There is a disconnect in the way the NHC warns, explains and gives the details in a cohesive, coherent way that tells the dangers. The NWS is awesome but it does not get the attention in the press that the NHC does; plain, simple and just the way it goes.

Going to sleep. In busted steering currents with wind shear form TS Harvey Irma or TD10 is trying to form off the SE Coast and already the discussion is going long on how it might be subtropical or turn into a ............... just keep it simple. Tell it like it is and put out an advisory. The media shouldn't hype it but they shouldn't ignore it.

The new cone at 11 PM shows a movement close to New Orleans. I'm more concerned why the people tasked with protecting the beautiful City of New Orleans do not have all the pumps working. I was explaining this to my husband who said that's like saying you can drive a 6 cylinder car without all the cylinders working. Or well you can't... and that is a BIGGER question to me than why some young family with limited means and 2 small children, a mother in law living with them and the family pooch didn't decide to head out on the highway to some mythological safety zone when the weather could go there as easily as where they lived. Why does the City of New Orleans think it's okay not to have all the pumps working?

Good night. Sorry for any typos. My eyes are blurry. I'm tired and I feel sad for those who are trapped tonight in their homes or neighborhoods in the dark. Been there. And it goes without saying even though I don't want to be ghoulish late at  night but when rescue is done and the water recedes we will find out just how many people died in Harvey so know any numbers you see in the news are a moving target and it's not going down, only up sadly.

Irma seems to be coming together...

Besos BobbiStorm.

With prayers for everyone affected by this storm.

And with hopes that people will take any future storm seriously after seeing Harvey in Texas.

Ps... Again saying Hurricane Matthew did not make landfall in Florida because only part of the eye clipped land but the exact center of the eye did not go over land. Seriously? The eye was over land, part of the eye and the eye wall. This is real life not a dissertation for a doctorate degree in academia.